


An Ever-Fixed Mark / Leave a Mark

by Karasbroken



Series: Little Boy Lost [1]
Category: Hornblower (TV)
Genre: Cross-Posted on FanFiction.Net, M/M, POV Jack, Pre-Canon, pre-Even Chance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-18
Updated: 2019-08-18
Packaged: 2020-09-06 19:37:59
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Rape/Non-Con, Underage
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,249
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20296873
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Karasbroken/pseuds/Karasbroken
Summary: Jack only ever wanted to see himself in the boy.





	An Ever-Fixed Mark / Leave a Mark

**Author's Note:**

> Fair warning, probably the darkest thing I've written. There is a psychology of abuse here that isn't very pretty to look at.
> 
> In my timeline, this fic is set long before Even Chance. Justinian was not the first time Archie and Jack served together, and the end of this fic is a year or more before Archie and Horatio meet.

The boy never let him in, not after the first time.

No matter how softly he used that hot moist mouth, how deeply he spilled, whether he made the boy swallow, or watched him spit, Jack could never really get inside. He had tried with kisses, sucked on thin lips until they bled, cut his tongue on those sharp white teeth, tasted every inch of that damp cavern, salty with blood, bitter with spend. It didn't matter. Whatever he tried to fill it with, Kennedy was always empty.

Wrapped around him like a glove, working jaw and throat and tongue until Jack was drunk with it all, the boy still wouldn't look at him. It was a service for some other man, tricks learned on a different cock and Jack was just getting the leavings.

He always had to make do. He could push a little deeper, force the boy to gag on it, to fight his hands, to shut those lake-dark eyes. But he couldn't make Archie see him. No matter how many times Jack looked into those quiet pools, he never saw himself either.

* * *

He didn't always have the best control.

Archie blackened eyes on a lot of hammock bars, stumbled into crates in the orlop, tripped on the gangway once and broke some ribs. The boy moved slower for a time, and learned not to run away. But Jack could never quite get close.

Grinding his balls against that pale backside until he thought his prick would come out the boy's mouth, he still couldn't touch Kennedy. He couldn't make the boy want it, make those soft hips dance with him or that sweet hole open for him.

He could force the boy, force him to do many things. But Jack couldn't make him give.

* * *

His fists never made an impression, so he tried with his nails. He left a handful of red half-moons where thigh met arse, and just that once, Kennedy made a sweet sound for him. Before they even healed, though, it was back to a silent fuck, barely a gasp or a grunt to know he was appreciated.

It took time, but Jack arranged a caning next. He almost didn't make it through the act without embarrassing himself, and afterward in the sick berth, he had to terrorize the loblolly boys to get the privacy he wanted. He brought a salve, and tended the boy so very carefully, rubbing, and soothing, and waiting very patiently until there were no more tears. Pressed up against those cuts, skin so hot he thought he might burn, Jack knew heaven.

Archie was incandescent, shaking, moaning, all soft and boneless in his arms. With a little work, the boy even came in his hand, and Jack shook with the triumph of it. It was perfect. But before he could get the boy on his knees again, the marks had healed to red seams. He liked to look at them, yet however he pinched, Kennedy would not tremble when he brushed them, would not thrust or beg as he had before.

He had Kennedy caned a second time, but it wasn't the same. The boy didn't even cry.

* * *

He stabbed Archie once, carefully, nowhere important. Put the knife in slow and watched the lad shudder and writhe until he was hot with it and took him with the blood dripping down to oil his passage. "Stabbed in an alley," Jack told them, "and robbed."

He nursed the boy through the fever after. Held the cup to his mouth and made him drink, made the boy better, showed that Jack would always be there. It turned into a lovely scar, but after a few months, Kennedy didn't even flinch when he touched it. Jack could never make a lasting mark.

Well, there were the fits, but they didn't count. The fits were just another way the boy managed to slip away.

* * *

"Here." He jabbed at one of his favorite spots, a smooth little stretch, just above the shy dark curls, where soft belly met a growing band of muscle.

"Over the bone, it will hurt."

"That doesn't matter." Archie said nothing, while the men prodded and studied the lad's hips. Such a good boy, these days, but too quiet. Jack had gotten tired of taking. He wanted to make Kennedy a gift. Something to remember him by.

Jack haggled with the man over the price, but not too hard. He wanted Archie naked for it, but at least he took the boy's shirt away, so he wouldn't sweat, or sick, or bleed into it. The breeches stayed, shoved down low out of the way. He hated seeing another man pinning his boy down, hovering so close over Archie's cock, but there was no help for it.

Jack satisfied himself with pulling the lad across his lap to hold him, stretched taut, and never looking more perfect, more his. He put a bottle of the best to Kennedy's lips and then let the artist get down to work.

He felt every tap, each time hammer hit needle hit skin, leaving something, at last, behind. Over and over Archie shuddered against him, bit kiss-stung lips, and squirmed with the heat of it. At last the boy surrendered, wrapping arms around his waist and holding tight.

Jack never wanted it to end, had some mad thought to make the crabbed little man go on, to put the whole damned card on the boy's body, the full jack. To order the artist to break out the yellow, blue, and red, to ink his own likeness right where he could see it on their next shore leave.

There would be a bed, and time to bend the boy back properly. He might even kneel down, after, and suck the lad's cock. He knew how, the same as Kennedy. He could steal the boy's seed, and finally, finally, see himself.

But the practicality of coin argued against that sort of romantic gesture, and in the end, Jack contented himself with the simple little card pip, and took Archie away too soon to their room in inn.

* * *

The boy began to strip as soon as they were through the door. He was eager for it too. And when little puckered cunt tried to fight him, as it always did, Jack wrapped his fingers tight around the yielding hips, got a good grip, let just the tips brush against the new bleeding stain, and shoved. The boy sang under him, and it couldn't last long enough.

He had let the boy drink too much, though, and Archie was sick right after, and that ruined the moment. So Jack pushed him onto the floor and spent the night alone, happy enough not to share the bed. Kennedy was always restless, and tended to kick.

He caught the boy stroking at the tattoo while they dressed at dawn. In a surge of fondness, he called Archie over, pet him, ran hands over slim chest and knotted arms, over the dozen little scars, over the sweet warm mouth that opened, and sucked, so eagerly, on his rough fingers.

Simpson held the boy in place, and licked that newest scab, black and weeping, iron on his tongue and last night's sex in his nose. Kennedy's prick stirred, and as Jack kissed the tiny spade he knew he'd finally made his mark.

* * *

_Feedback from readers is the best motivation in the world. _ _Please consider leaving a comment, it gives me life!_


End file.
